My morning yoga practice is now ingrained into my life, starting my day as I mean to go on, it’s now a part of me. My practice is devoted to the teachings of my teacher Paul Harvey, his teacher T.K.V. Desikachar and his teacher, Sri T Krishnamacharya.

All of my yoga is a path to meditation which is now very well established and consistent. I don’t use any particular style of meditation but I am probably more on par with vipassana. I have tried short lead meditations, I have tried meditations that use music but they are not for me, for the time being, I much prefer sitting still and in complete silence. My sessions are now 5 mornings a week and a very comfortable 30 minutes, only one foot goes to sleep in the last five minutes but at last there is no discomfort and my posture feels strong even at the end of the practice. I am able to focus on my mindful object for long periods of time before I am distracted by the tricks of the mind, and I am now finding it much easier to bring the focus back to my mindful object and feel at peace within the meditation.

Does the mind switch of at all? For me no, because I am trying to be mindful of one thing, rather than allowing a monkey mind to jump from one thought to the next. Instead of my mind continuously searching for things to do and for things that are pleasing, instead I am able to focus and calm the mind down. This has a huge impact on the whole of my day and my life, in that whatever life throws at me my mind is able to analyse, see clearly and make decisions that are for the good. I feel continuously at peace within, genuinely content and not jumbled up with the confusion of different emotions from one moment to the next. I don’t feel that I am searching for happiness, I feel like its here, its in me, it was always in me, I just didn’t know it. I am experiencing gratitude for the simplest of things and I am able to let go of stuff be it material or mental, much easier and without hesitation or looking back. I’ve also found that I need people less and less, don’t get me wrong I don’t not want to be with people but the spending time in my own company is much easier now that I am able to focus and that when my mind does try to distract me by throwing random situations at me, I can see it for what it really is and respect myself a lot more by saying no to my mind. And last of all, meditation has opened my mind more to self study, finding out more about who I am and making me aware of my daily actions instead of me existing through wilful ignorance.

I would like to get deeper in to my meditation and take the practice up to one hour. I am using a timer called Insight Timer which is an app on my phone, the timer has helped loads in that it offers different ways of timing your sitting sessions. I like to add minutes as a way of a slow progression, ie I started with 5 minutes a day, then increased to 10 minutes, continued increasing by 5 minutes until I reached 20 minutes, here I need to increase by 2 or 3 minutes as the 5 minute increases were too much. If one would like interval timings then different bell chimes can be timed for every 5 minutes, 10 minutes and so on, its all very simple and it means I can relax, go into the meditation without having to worry about clock watching. I also like it’s feature of being able to connect with social networking sites, letting friends know that I have just completed a meditation practice and for how long, this I am hoping will inspire others to give it a go. What’s also nice, is that when you have completed your meditation, other users from all over the world, are then calculated and you are told how many people have meditated with you and how many are still meditating, I am always interested to read how with whom and how many I have shared in moments of world peace.

I would very much like to attend a 10 day vipassana retreat, was hoping to do that this year, but with everything that happened last year and the beginning of this year, I think it would be best to continue with what I am doing and plan the 10 day vipassana retreat Autumn next year, after all there is no hurry.

Yesterday I had 121 lesson with my teacher Paul Harvey of Centre of Yoga Studies, Bristol. We were exploring parivrtta trikonasana and as I was preparing to step into this asana, I quickly mentioned to Paul that my feet will slip on his cloth mat, he said to me, “well grip the mat with your feet and activate your legs efficiently, so your feet don’t slip.” He went on to say, “I never got to use sticky mats all of my years in India, and sticky mats don’t help your legs become stronger, in fact quite the opposite, your legs become soft in the places where you need them to be active.” So no sticky mat for me yesterday and I had to grip the mat in a way I’ve never gripped before, in order to stop the feet from slipping on Paul’s cloth mat. Parivrrta trikonasana felt so different, I felt something which Paul had spoken about before but didn’t understand, ‘the source of the asana’. Although the dynamics of the asana was tougher, I had more awareness of what I was doing and my practice of trikonasana was far better than I had even done so before. I and it felt brilliant. From this day forward, no more sticky mats for me, no matter how tough the asana and it just so happens I have a cloth mat collecting dust in my studio ….. happy days.

Just back, rode home in the summer rain, goggles on so could see clearly n had it large, the bike rode like a dream, t-shirt n shorts soaked but do I feel refreshed and chuffed!

Thought I’d get this blog post down whilst I’m still feeling the buzz.

The volunteers at Reading Bicycle Kitchen are all hero’s they all need capes!

So what, who is the Bicycle Kitchen? Well from the story I know, vaguely, some chap was knocked of his bike, laid up for a spell and during his healing time, had a eureka moment of putting together a place where, people could go to learn how to look after their bicycles themselves. The dream started small, got bigger more people involved and then they got help from Reading Borough Council and the opportunity to live in one of the most iconic buildings in Reading’s history, the Jacksons building. It’s a non-profit enterprise all proceeds go back into the ‘Kitchen’ to pay for the rent on the building, tools and tea bags. Plus if you’re strapped for cash and need a bike, then you can learn how to build your own, for a fraction of a fraction, of the cost of buying one. All the tools you need are provided, bikes and bike parts being donated to provide bike spares and the expertise is in abundance. The place is buzzing with sharing, kind and friendly bike enthusiast who simply cant do enough to ensure that your bike is safe for you to ride. Also, Reading Bicycle Kitchen is becoming a meeting place of like minded people, drinking cups of tea whilst chewing the cud over bikes and life in general.

The costs are being kept as low as possible and if you’re not earning just bring along some evidence and you’ll not be charged for the session. The prices are: up to 1hr for £4, up to 2hrs for £6, up to 3 hours for £8 and up to 4 hours for £10.

I was in the ‘kitchen’ for just over an hour, in that time I was shown how to maintain my brakes and once shown, I had to do myself. I then learnt the importance of regular checks for structural weaknesses, checking tires, wheels, pedals, I learnt how to check my brakes, brake pads, where to lubricate gears, chain and SPD clips, I learnt the safe way to brake and I learnt how to use the tools properly. I learnt why some cables wear out quicker than others and the importance of checking them on a regular basis, I learnt that the mechanics of a bike is so simple and that a regular check and your maintenance of your bike takes minutes! and costs nothing! your bike lasts longer and you’re not conned into buying parts for your bike that it doesn’t need.

Love the place! adore the people! respect for what they are doing and I most certainly will be popping in regular to maintain my bike, have a laugh and a catch up over a brew.